The present invention relates to a device for analyzing and monitoring exercise done by a user.
In the fitness sector for some time now there have been various widely used prior art devices for monitoring exercise done by a user while working out or, more generally, throughout the entire day, to provide the user with information regarding the amount of exercise done: in this way, the user can deduce whether or not said amount is sufficient to satisfy his training, weight loss or other program, or whether he must increase it, and by how much.
Obviously, such devices are typically portable, that is to say, pocket size, or equipped with special “clips” for fixing them to clothing. This makes them suitable for measuring exercise done by the user anywhere and at any time of day.
Some of these devices are generally called pedometers, and have a mechanism (springs, accelerometer and other parts) designed to calculate the number of steps taken by the user during the period of time for which he carries it with him, having means for displaying said number.
As already indicated, said devices are specially designed and made to calculate simply the number of steps taken by the user, without being able to measure in any way the intensity and speed with which said steps were taken. For example, with a conventional pedometer it is not possible to tell whether the steps were taken while walking or running. The difference between the two types of exercise is, obviously, significant.
Some models of pedometers based on accelerometers can measure the speed of the step and roughly determine the intensity of the movement. Other, more complex but still portable devices have not just an accelerometer, but also a processor which, using a suitable algorithm, allows the calculation, after entry of “input” data such as the user's gender, age, height, weight, of the amount of calories burned by the user during a predetermined period of time (typically the entire day) based on the measurements taken with the accelerometer, so as to provide indications regarding the amount of exercise done, which may be referred to the training program.
There are also known exercise machines (treadmills, exercise bicycles) equipped with at least one processor able to calculate, based on parameters recorded during machine operation, the amount of exercise done. Said exercise machines are specially equipped with a display for displaying said amount of exercise, for example in terms of time, distance covered, intensity, calories burned (obviously, provided the user entered his identification parameters, that is to say, gender, age, height, weight, etc.).
Nowadays in the fitness sector the need is felt to be able to provide the user, or his trainer, with complete information about the overall exercise done during a predetermined period of time (for example an entire day), both on machines (treadmills, exercise bicycles, etc.) and, for example, outdoors by walking or running or playing a sport, so as to be able to analyze the cumulative exercise in the most precise and accurate way possible.
However, it has been found that the use of devices such as conventional pocket size pedometers or the like on exercise machines (typically treadmills) generates rather significant measuring errors, which therefore do not allow the user and/or his trainer to evaluate with sufficient precision the overall amount of exercise done. In other words, it is not possible to obtain a precise and accurate evaluation of the sum of exercise done on exercise machines and that done outdoors (walking, running or playing a sport).
Therefore, in the sector, in response to this important demand, exercise machines (in particular treadmills) were created which are specifically set up to interact with portable measuring devices such as pedometers, using known means of communication. One example of this appears in United States patent application No. US2005/0272564. Said patent application describes a treadmill designed to receive information transmitted by a pedometer so as to record, in a suitable treadmill memory, the measurements taken by the pedometer in a predetermined period of time, and also able to display said measurements on the machine display so as to make them known to the user and/or the trainer.
An evident disadvantage of such a piece of equipment is the fact that the processors of modern exercise machine, together with the various measuring sensors they control, are typically and now generally designed to calculate and display information relating to user exercise mainly in terms of distance covered and/or calories burned, therefore they are not well suited to data consisting of the number of steps taken. As may be inferred from the above-mentioned patent application, the latter data is essential particularly in order to carry out those specific and well known training programs based on “10000 steps a day”, but not for programs for training and/or maintaining weight designed according to calories consumed or overall exercise done during a day. Moreover, measuring steps is not suitable for measuring and adding together the exercise done on exercise machines which have a movement different to walking or running, for example exercise bicycles, rowing machines, machines with elliptical movement and others.
Another major disadvantage of both portable devices for measuring exercise (pedometers or the like) and exercise machines relates to the fact that all training programs set up on them which set goals (known in the sector as “goal training”), are set up based on considerations which are so generic and impersonal (for example the above-mentioned “10000 steps a day”) that they rarely meet the actual needs of each user and equally rarely adapt to the actual physical conditions of the user.